Description
"The Kansas Narrative of John Doy of Lawrence, Kansas - A Plain, Unvarnished Tale" - - (Researcher's note: Due to the numerous references to Platte County, only selected excerpts have been indexed.)
Chapter XVI The Jail at St. Joseph - Further Incidents of The Slave-Trade p. 98 - - Every few days we would have a fresh arrival in the shape of slaves sent in for sale, or a prisoner for trial.
Wright, the trader, who lived in town, was always ready for a bargain, and would generally buy any one who was sent to be sold for a trifling fault, as was sometimes the case, but the trade was by no means so brisk as at Platte City.
There they were brought in numbers, and as many as five coffles were once sent off in a week, while from St. Joseph they were shipped by twos and threes to the agents at St. Louis - one named Lynch (Bernard M. Lynch), and the other Thompson (Corbin Thompson) - who kept slave-pens in that city.
(Researcher's note: In January 1859 abolitionist John Doy agreed to take a group of 13 African American Kansans north to Iowa on one leg of the Underground Railroad. Dr. Doy and his group were then captured 12 miles north of Lawrence by a group of Missouri slave hunters which included Weston Mayor Benjamin Wood. Doy and his 21 year old son, Charles, were transported back to Weston, Missouri and placed in jail. He was later transferred to the Platte City jail and then to the St. Joseph, Missouri, jail. Along the way they were displayed in the streets and hounded, beaten and nearly hanged. He was charged with a federal offense of "slave stealing” and awaited a sentence of hard labor or death. In jail after a second trial that found him guilty, ten men went from Lawrence to St. Joseph in July 1859 and broke Doy out of jail. He returned to Kansas and later wrote a 137-page narrative describing in detail his experiences in Platte County, Missouri.)Date(s) of Creation
1/1/1860
